Are you worried about losing your momentum while you’re on vacation? But does working on your dissertation while vacationing seem depressing?

Actually, writing while you’re on vacation may be easier and more pleasant than you think.

Vacation will make you feel happier and livelier. Since it’s easier to write when you’re happy, you may be surprised at how normal and uncomplicated it is to take a peek now and then at your dissertation while you’re on vacation.

Here are 5 tips to help you maintain your writing momentum and still enjoy your vacation.

1. Plan ahead before leaving home. Have a list of modest writing tasks that you can do on vacation.

2. Make use of small chunks of time. You can’t find one quiet hour each day away from the family while vacationing? Then claim 25 minutes every day or two for your writing.

3. Use the different location and break in your routine to your advantage. Writing in a hotel room or on a balcony looking toward the mountains is not your usual ho-hum, one-more-day- at- the- library approach. Get up while others are still snoozing and write for a bit. Take a legal pad and a pen and walk to a bench in a quiet area.

4. Balance is possible. Approach each day well rested, exercise, eat well, and give yourself permission to see that your writing project is part of your life, not your whole life.

5. Anticipate the unexpected. Your marvelous brain can spontaneously give you ideas, right out of the blue. Dissertation coaching clients tell me of breakthroughs they have had when they were on vacation or when they have changed their routine. Jogging, swimming, staring into space—you never know when an idea might hit!

Now that’s a great vacation.

All good wishes,

Nancy
P.S. There’s an added bonus to working 25 minutes on your dissertation every day or two while you’re on vacation: Restarting your daily writing habit when you get home will be much easier.